I believe the regulation is like a knife that cuts both ways. There is good and bad from it. Most of it started with the EPA and emissions, (cars and then off road). CJ Ramstead (Race and Rally? and Snow week writer) wrote an article many years before his untimely passing that showed how much fuel the snowmobile market actually burned in a year and it was almost insignificant when compared to the motor vehicles usage. Although every bit of reduction makes a difference our biggest concern then and now is on the motor vehicles we run down the road, due to the miles driven and the gallons burned. I think back to the early 70's when air pumps were installed on car engines. Emission's went down, fuel mileage suffered, and HP decreased. Yet we were forced to accept this and the manufactures were forced to roll up their sleeves and do better. This lead to full closed loop fuel injection and today we have more HP per cubic inch and better millage to go along with it in our cars and trucks. Yes the diesels are now starting down this same road and some of the new systems are not yet where we would like them, but if past history says anything I believe this too will take the same path to more power and better millage in the diesels. Would this evolution have happened if it were not mandated? I would say yes but most likely at a much slower pace.
I remember buying new sleds in the 90's that were jetted for 20 bellow and still several sizes to rich for that temp. Most were afraid to lean down as they trusted the MFG specs and did not want to have issues. Factories were also concerned about warranty issues so there was no incentive to deliver product with spot on tuning besides being the HP king of the pack. In the early 2000's new sleds started to be delivered from the factory with flat slides and compensators and there was a noticeable difference in the performance. The two stroke ding a ding ding (sound and response) was there all the way from idle to wide open and back down to idle. I believe this was the era where MFG were starting to be forced to look after the emissions with tighter ones coming. Fuel injection came next to meet these mandates. As engines make HP in proportion to the amount of air and fuel we can stuff thru them here is where the downfall is. Less fuel equals less emissions equals less power. This is where the engine management systems can make up for the adage of more fuel equals more power. Control it so it gets there when needed and not have a bunch of extra fuel being burned incompletely in the pipe without any benefit to efficiency. Control all aspects of it, exhaust valves, timing, oil injection, injector timing, etc. I believe we have some of the best performing two strokes ever and the MFG have been able to meet the mandated emissions that not so long ago I read article after article about the eventual retirement of the two stroke engine in sleds due to these mandates. Would we be here with the current technology today with out the mandates? I think we would be about half way to this point, mostly because of the additional cost of this evolution that we had no choice but to accept it. I think the consumer would have chosen lower priced technology on this run up and this would have slowed the development of this technology down without the mandates. The price of sleds have risen and I would have been one of those consumers voting for what I want to afford and the MFG would follow what the consumer is willing to pay for. Our sleds are cleaner, has it made a huge impact on our overall air quality problems? Most likely not, as the sled market is such a small contributor to the problem. The cost to EPA an engine is so large that the MFG must limit their engine offerings to single digit numbers for their whole fleet. Hard to offer limited high performance builds, or small demand niche markets in that atmosphere. As originally stated this cuts both ways, but for me I will accept where we are even if I don't like how we got here, and enjoy the newest technology that has made snowmobiling a pull and go sport, that not so long ago required a lot more mechanical aptitude and wrenching than it requires today.
